Suwon English Play Competition

On the first day of the new semester, I'm informed that our vice principal wants us to enter into the Suwon English Play competition.  As you can imagine, I'm not overly thrilled about this, but consider that there is a possibility that this could be entertaining. Clearly, with all competitions, there are rules and guidelines.  For this competiton, there's only a couple of rules.  First, the play must be between five and eight minutes.  Pretty simple, and I'm thrilled, because this would involve much less work.  The second rule, and by far the most difficult, is that the play must be about Hwaseong Fortress and it's history. 

For those of you who have no idea what this is, its a large stone fortress in Suwon, that surrounds a large part of the city, and a palace.  It's nearly 6 km in length, and was built by a King Jeongjo to house his father's tomb.  It's also been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thats about as much information as I know about it, so I'm clearly not thrilled that I've been asked to put on a play with this topic.  That's not enough information to write a play about it's history.  I'd surely mess up and offend their culture. To my surprise, my co teacher offers to write the play, and would like me to merely edit it and ensure that it makes sense.  Huge relief.

Next step, is auditions.  These were about as ass backwards as you could get for auditions.  First off, the day of the auditions (Friday), students are told over the loud speaker, that there will be auditions for the english play after school.  Without any notice and considering it was Friday, I assumed that we would not have many auditoners (not really sure if that's a word).  My school has roughly 1500 kids between Grade 1 and 6, and I believe that only Grades 4-6 could enter.  Out of an estimated 750 students, only 10 should up for the audition.  Pretty weak, but easier for me, because its less to watch, but certainly a smaller talent pool.  I assumed that it would only be my coteachers and I that would judge the auditions.  However, they asked two other teachers, along with a head teacher and my vice principal.  The VP can hardly speak english, so it made a ton of sense to ask her to judge the auditions.  This was the most mathematical audition in history.  Students were to be graded on five aspects, worth twenty points each for a score out of 100.  Then, they would get all the judges scores, calculate the average, and then chose the students who made the play. A shit load of effort for 5 minutes of acting.  The students are given a small part of the script to review, and after three minutes, are asked to audition.  Clearly this isn't enough time to prepare, and after one student butchers their audition, my vice-principal, to my utter amazement says, in Korean obviously, that they need more time to prepare.  So, the students get 15 minutes this time, and then we do the auditions.  After all the calculations are complete, five students are chosen.  Practice starts the following week.

I didn't have to watch over the practice often, possibly only five days out of probably fifteen, but editing the script certainly took up enough of my time.  My co-teacher wanted to make the play a comedy, drama, and musical all in one.  Quite a goal to achieve within such a short time frame and considering the limited level of character development.  I must have read and editted the script ten times, not because I missed so many mistakes everytime, but because my co-teacher decided to change the script so many times.  After three weeks of practice, numerous songs, scenes, and dialog added and deleted from the script, it was time for the big competition.  

The play required five actors, and for some stage hands....... three teachers.  There were three roles.  Director, who would stand and wave their hands and pretend they were conducting an orchestra, as well as scroll through some powerpoint slides which would be shown in the background.  This was seemingly the most important of the roles, and was taken by the co-teacher who wrote and managed the play.  Second, was music.  I took this role first, and it invovled pushing play on a CD player when the singing was about to begin.  I felt this was an easy role, and one suited for me.  However, I got bumped out of this position, and it went to my other co-teacher.  My new role was special effects.  They only involved creating a smoky effect using dry ice.  I have no experience with dry ice, and was told it was a simple effect. All I would need to do was wave a piece of cardboard blowing the mist across the stage.  Sounds simple, yet during the last few rehearsals, I was asked to practice the timing of my fanning.  I nearly shit my pants, considering anyone can easily wave a piece of cardboard on cue.  There's no need to practice it numerous times.

The big day finally arrives and we drive to another school to perform.  Twenty four other schools enter the competition, and only a panel of three Koreans and one foreigner would watch and judge.  None of the schools could watch the other performances, because there was a fear of plagiarism.  No idea how anyone could change there play around to copy someone elses in such limited time, but they considered it a serious possibility  We are chosen to perform 15th, so we wait around for about an hour and a half.  The moment finally arrives and we go one stage.  I'm given a styrofoam box filled with dry ice and a thermos with water.  Before the play begins, they tell me to pour all the water in with the ice, and place the cover on the box.  Once the water was added, the box begins to billow out loads of fog.  I shove the lid on, and wait for my moment.  The play is going great, the kids are remembering all their lines and my moment arrives.  I open the box, begin to wave my cardboard, and realize that the dry ice and water have mixed and formed a gigantic block of ice, and there is no fog effect occuring. Somehow, I managed to fuck up my only role.  The play finished, and the other teachers decide that it was their mistake because it was in a styrofoam box, and that is why it turned to ice. I have no idea if that makes any sense, but I didn't really give a shit at the time.  They're decided that it's their fault and not mine. Special effect weren't needed for a five minutes elementary school comedy/drama/musical.

Out of the twenty four schools, we placed second.  We were informed of this almost a week after the performance, and I'm really pleased with the result.  The rest of the teachers are not, and are upset that we didn't get first.  No cause for celebration or happiness.  Some of the teachers are talking about it in Korean, and I hear my younger co-teacher say something about the dry ice and make a shrug of her shoulders.  Clearly, they were thinking that if I didn't mess up this dry ice; the role that I didn't want in the first place, and the role that wasn't required for the play, that they would have won the competition.  All the other teachers nod solemnly in agreement and glance toward me.  I just let it go, because it makes no sense whatsoever to fight about it.  I'm sure that wasn't the reason we lost.  What kinda judge looks at a teacher trying to help out at a play and says "Wow, he really fucked up bad. If they would have had some fog for the about five seconds, they would have won first place. Let's blame him, and make the kids lose out because he couldn't get that amazing special effect to operate properly."